Personal life
Koppel, an only child, was born in Nelson, Lancashire, England, after his German Jewish parents fled Germany due to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Koppel, at 13, immigrated to the United States in 1953 with his family. His mother, Alice, was a singer and pianist, and his father, Edwin, was a tire factory owner. He graduated from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Science Degree and from Stanford University with a Master of Arts Degree in Mass Communications Research and Political Science. Koppel returns to Syracuse University regularly as a guest speaker. He was a member of the student-run WAER and keeps in touch with the student media at Syracuse. He is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.
In 1963, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and married Grace Anne Dorney.
Koppel is multilingual and speaks German, Russian, and French in addition to his native English.
Koppel is an old friend of Henry Kissinger. Both Kissinger and Koppel moved to the United States as children. As Secretary of State, Kissinger once offered Koppel a job as his spokesman, but Koppel declined.[citation needed] Along with former Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Kissinger was the most frequent guest on Nightline. In an interview, Koppel commented, "Henry Kissinger is, plain and simply, the best secretary of state we have had in 20, maybe 30 years -- certainly one of the two or three great secretaries of state of our century," and added, "I’m proud to be a friend of Henry Kissinger. He is an extraordinary man. This country has lost a lot by not having him in a position of influence and authority".
Ted and Grace Anne have four children: Andrea (a journalist), Deirdre, Andrew, and Tara. Andrew Koppel was found dead in a New York City apartment on May 31, 2010, reportedly after a day-long drinking binge.
Career
Early
Koppel had a brief stint as a teacher before being hired as a copyboy at WMCA Radio in New York. In June 1963, he became the youngest correspondent ever hired by ABC Radio News, working on the daily Flair Reports program. In 1966, Koppel worked for ABC Television as a war correspondent during the Vietnam War. Koppel returned in 1968 to cover the campaign of Richard Nixon, before becoming Hong Kong bureau chief, and US State Department correspondent, where Koppel formed a good friendship with Henry Kissinger.
Criticism
Koppel was criticized for being a conduit for the government's point of view. In the late 1980s, the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) conducted a 40-month study of 865 editions of Nightline and concluded, "On shows about international affairs, U.S. government policymakers and ex-officials dominated the Nightline guest list. American critics of foreign policy were almost invisible." In 1987, Newsweek opined, "The anchor who makes viewers feel that he is challenging the powers that be on their behalf is in fact the quintessential establishment journalist". Koppel responded to this criticism, saying, "We are governed by the president and his cabinet and their people. And they are the ones who are responsible for our foreign policy, and they are the ones I want to talk to".[5]
Departure from Nightline
On November 22, 2005, Koppel stepped down from Nightline after 25 years with the program and left ABC after 42 years with the network. His final Nightline broadcast did not feature clips highlighting memorable interviews and famous moments from his tenure as host, as is typical when an anchor retires. Instead, the show replayed the highly acclaimed episode of Nightline with Koppel's 1995 interviews with retired Brandeis University sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, who was dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease). For this broadcast, Koppel interviewed sports journalist Mitch Albom, who had been a student of Schwartz. Albom talked about how the Nightline interviews led and inspired him into contacting Schwartz personally, and then visiting him weekly. These visits became the basis for the popular book Tuesdays with Morrie, chronicling lessons about life learned from Schwartz.
After the show's last commercial break, Koppel made his final remarks prior to signing off:
“ There's this quiz I give to some of our young interns when they first arrive at Nightline. I didn't do it with the last batch; it's a little too close to home. "How many of you," I'll ask, "can tell me anything about Eric Sevareid?" Blank stares. "How about Howard K. Smith or Frank Reynolds?" Not a twitch of recognition. "Chet Huntley? Jack Chancellor?" Still nothing. "David Brinkley" sometimes causes a hand or two to be raised, and Walter Cronkite may be glad to learn that a lot of young people still have a vague recollection that he once worked in television news. What none of these young men and women in their late teens and early 20s appreciates, until I point it out to them, is that they have just heard the names of seven anchormen or commentators who were once so famous that everyone in the country knew their names. Everybody. Trust me, the transition from one anchor to another is not that big a deal. Cronkite begat Rather, Chancellor begat Brokaw, Reynolds begat Jennings. And each of them did a pretty fair job in his own right. You've always been very nice to me, so give this new anchor team for Nightline a fair break. If you don't, I promise you the network will just put another comedy show in this time slot. Then you'll be sorry. And that's our report for tonight. I'm Ted Koppel in Washington, and from all of us here at ABC News, good night. ”
Following Nightline Koppel has taken on a number of roles which span various formats of news media:
* He signed up as an opposite editorial-contributing columnist, effective January 29, 2006, for New York Times.
* Starting in June 2006, he has provided commentary to Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Day to Day on National Public Radio, joining NPR's other two Senior News Analysts, Cokie Roberts and Daniel Schorr. As such, he participated in the annual NPR Fourth of July reading of the Declaration of Independence in 2007.
* Koppel makes occasional guest appearances on The Daily Show appearing in extreme close-up as a disembodied head, acting as Jon Stewart's journalistic conscience, sometimes as the replacement for the so-called "Giant Head of Brian Williams" projected on the screen behind Stewart. Koppel has jokingly insisted that "this is the actual size of [Koppel's] head"
* Koppel has worked for BBC News as a "contributing analyst" covering the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
* In 2008, Koppel took an extensive look into the changing world of China with the four part documentary on The Discovery Channel, The People's Republic of Capitalism. The series takes a look at China's growing economy and their role as consumers in a communist country.
Discovery Channel
Following his departure from Nightline Koppel formed a three-year partnership with Discovery Communications as managing editor of the Discovery Channel. While at Discovery Koppel produced several lengthy documentaries on a variety of subjects including a four-hour miniseries on China, which Koppel "ranks with some of the work that [he is] most proud of over the years." Koppel and Discovery Communications parted ways in November, 2008, terminating their contract six months early, prompting rumors that Koppel would be hired for NBC's Meet the Press. Koppel has stated that he is not interested in the job.
Influence
"Network news programming continues to be dominated by faces from another era. (Koppel made his reputation in the late seventies by covering the Iranian hostage crisis every night; in the eighties, he was talked about—seriously—as secretary of State.) These faces (along with Koppel, Jennings, Brokaw, Rather, Barbara Walters, Mike Wallace, Morley Safer) are the networks' brand identifiers. They all made their reputations in a three-network world. This means—drumbeat—they are more famous than anyone has ever been and more famous than anyone will ever be. They are both obsolete (all of them with an increasingly bewildered look—the Georgie Jessels of our age) and yet at the same time necessary. No one will ever be as recognizable as they are—the hum will never be so steady without them," wrote media critic, Michael Wolff, in a 2002 profile of Koppel in New York Magazine.
